Watchful Eyes
by merlintriss
Summary: Leverage TNT series fic. Someone may have caught on to the not so legal acts committed by the Leverage team. R & R.
1. Chapter 1

This fic is based off of Leverage, the new series on TNT which as of twenty minutes ago had its second episode. From what I've seen of the casts incredibly illegal activities, the producers are going to have to throw in the requisite FBI person who is hot on their trail but whom no one believes because how could such an organization exist? (see: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Oceans 12, Boondock Saints) So, I'm writing this fic. If it gets any interest, I may continue with it past the first chapter. Who knows.

Chapter 1

Detective Ross Bardott had a history of beliving in conspiracy theories. It didn't make him the most believable agent, which is why he had never made it very far in his organization. He had long ago accepted the lack of pay raises, the derision of his peers and the fact that he often times ended up wrong. But in his defense, the case he had about the murders running rampant through the East Coast had seemed promising until independent state agencies had discovered they were uncorrelated and he was almost sent to the mail room, anywhere where they could put a failure. But Jenkins, the older woman who ran the operations for his office, she kept him around despite her peers distrust of him. She said that he always managed to get the right leads. And he did. If anything, he was now an ambulance chaser for the government.

He had his favorites to watch. Right now it was Nate Ford, a James Bond kind of enigma in his own right, though he only worked for insurance companies and not MI5. In the world of getting secrets, Nate Ford was a super agent, and he had a good history of going up against the best and getting back the objects he needed. He remembered in particular when he had found out about Nate getting around Parker and one of her stolen Monets. The woman was incredibly territorial, and had burned down two or three of the decoy houses Nate had set up as insurance that she wouldn't get to him first.

And this thing happened with his kid dying, and Nate Ford went off the map. Which greatly depressed Ross, because if there was one thing he enjoyed doing, it was following the continuing adventures of Mr. Ford when he should be working. After all, he had access to most of his companies records. It didn't take long to find out that he had quit and was now an alcoholic of the highest order outside of Chicago.

If Ross wasn't paying such close attention, perhaps he wouldn't have noticed the sudden change in Nate's behavior. It was creepy, but Ross was sure he know knew the man better than the man knew himself with the overeaching arm of the U.S. Government. And then, of all things, the man bought a cherry red Tesla Roadster, and Ross knew something was up.

The Roadster was the beginning. In his off hours, Ross began to look more closely at the ex-insurance company man. And he discovered the Leverage offices, too clean and new to really have been around since the early 1900's. It was squeaky clean, a company run by Nate Ford, with several rather odd staff members, but nothing that would be innappropriate if you were just doing a courtesy look through.

Pictures, however, speak 1000 words.

The FBI has one of the greatest facial recognition systems in the world, and Dt. Bardott put it to good use with a few candids he snapped of the group coming and going from the offices. He should've felt less surprised when the names came back.

Sophie Deveraux he almost expected. If there was anyone from Nate's past he would bring back, it would have to be Sophie. Her parole officer informed Ross that Sophie was straight now, struggling as an actress in Chicago, but no longer pulling con jobs. As far as he could tell. But Sophie had managed to leave her last parole officer in New York half naked and hand cuffed to his office chair before running often to Paris with her millionaire mark.

The others were a bigger surprise.

In the insurance companies files, he knew Nate had had some experience with Eliot Spencer, but not enough to pull him into some sort of company. Ross was familiar with Eliot, a kind of thug of some sort that rumor had it had been off to some monastery after being a private contractor for the military for a while. Eliot was an enigma, but he had known Nate, had been a part of a couple of jobs that had tried to run under the insurance mans nose.

And Parker, well, everyone knew Parker. He was sure that woman's prints were in the system for the fun of it, and the picture had only been a half match from some camera footage he was sure she had let them have. But what she was doing with Nate he wasn't sure. She was a wild card, prone to acts of major insanity and violence.

The other one he wasn't sure about. The man wasn't in the system, but he was tall, African American and athletic looking. Judging from the company he kept, he was probably a criminal too. What was Nate doing with all of these people? Wasn't he one of the good guys?

But he couldn't concentrate that much on the enigma that was Leverage, not until after the major scandal erupted with the congressman and the defense contractors and the several billion dollars in "missing" money found in a storage container on the pier. It was enough to give a conspiracy theorist like himself cold shivers in anticipation.

Nate could wait.

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	2. Chapter 2

Thank you all for reviewing, and for telling me that this category finally existed.

Chapter 2

He got the impression they were now being watched. This was not an odd sensation because in his line of work, he always thought he was being watched. Usually he was right.

Nate remembered a particular instance in his early days when he thought he wasn't being watched, when he was sure he was finally off the grid and he went to a little cafe in France, had himself a latte and a beignet. It had been a long time since he had felt that way.

Parker had once gotten the jump on him, actually, when he was thinking he wasn't being watched, after he had carefully nabbed back a priceless Monet from her collection. He could've made millions off the gold mine he found in a storage room she so carefully guarded. He remembered a story he heard about dragons, how they guarded their hoard, a great pile of treasure they themselves could only appreciate for its beauty and not its actual value, and how they did so to the death. Parker, he decided, was a dragon. A giant vicious scaly beast with a penchant for vengeance and fire.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when she almost set him on fire in his hotel room. She suceeded in burning the hotel room to a fine crisp before the cops got there, but he wasn't there. He had left to get ice down the hall and was distracted by a little old lady who wanted to know if he could get her extra towels. He had calmly told her that he did not, in fact, work at the hotel, but she had been persistent, and by the time he got back to his room, there was smoke pouring from under the door.

He was surprised that now that he started working with Parker he didn't hold any of this against her. He also didn't hold the fact that Eliot once had him lying unconcious and on the floor, or that Sophie had left him in hotel rooms around the world, sometimes naked, and never truly sexual. Ok, so despite his best efforts, he did, in fact, hold that last bit against her. Naked? Really? Was that entirely necessary?

Nate was surprised they would let him lead them, but when it came down to it, most of them were adrenaline junkies. He was pretty sure the exception was Eliot, but Eliot was usually the exception. Meeting the man, you wouldn't think he rode horses. Or that he could fell a man with a few well placed blows. Or anything else about him. Eliot was a right and proper enigma.

But he had a job for them, a job he was sure would get wrong people to suffer and the right people the help they needed. Maybe even Jim Sterling would suffer. No. He couldn't make this personal. This wasn't about him and it definitely wasn't about that twisted-in-it-for-the-money Jim Sterling.

He thought he might have the right case for their particular brand of expertise. Like he told Jim, he didn't think that Leverage was the law, simply an addition, a way to pick up the pieces that the law missed. The Montenegro family was one of those bits that the law left behind.

A very long time ago, the family had been wealthy. But generations had passed, and a family that once dedicated itself to philanthropy and the railroad now worked manual labor and had a daughter trying to get through nursing school. They had come a long way from where they once were, but they too needed help.

The family had fallen on hard times, and had had to take out mortgages and loans for their home from the multinational banking company TCBI. They had fallen behind on payments. Everytime they applied for an extension, they were denied. The company felt, that even wiith their lack of money, they should still be able to continue paying for their loans. Extensions were denied. Other loans were declined. No matter what the Montenegros did, they couldn't pay for their loans.

So they started giving the CEO bribes of sorts. Once, a long time before, when the Montenegros still owned railroads they and the family of the CEO of TCBI had been good friends. The man's name was Dr. Martin Tibly, and he was a good man. His grandson, however, was not.

He was greedy and he desired what the Montenegros had. More precisely, he wanted the Diamond.

The Diamond was one of the only things the family had to its name, the only thing that was left of their past glory. It was, as the name suggested, a diamond. Never set, it rested in a blue velvet case in the safe at the house, next to birth certificates and proof of insurance. It was valuable, but for reasons primarily sentimental, it had never been sold.

It saved the Montengros a month on their payments.

And then the bank came calling again, and they coudn't pay. The only thing of value they had they had given for an extension, on the word of a corrupt man. Who had promptly turned on them, claiming the Diamond had never been given to them.

Nate felt that it was a good case for them. Parker would be pleased about actually stealing something tangible, Eliot would approve of the family, and Hardison might be interested in the security system, which, like almost everything they dealt with, was supposed to be top of the line. He wasn't sure what Sophie would think, but he was sure she would be in.

Still though, the feeling that someone was watching filled him. He was sure part of it was probably just paranoia. In this work, you couldn't wait for someone to strike. You had to know they were coming, sometimes before they did. He just hoped everything would go right, and the Montenegro's would get their money back.

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